Comments on: Why IE6 is the Greatest Browser Ever Made

By: Rick imby

Rick imby — Sun, 31 May 2009 19:03:31 +0000

I had no idea that IE 6 still had such a large userbase. I still have a DOS point of sale system running in my retail business so I guess if it ain’t broke…

Rick

By: Impressive Webs

Impressive Webs — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 22:22:39 +0000

@Shoghon: Who ever said success was dependent on following rules/laws? :-)

By: Shoghon

Shoghon — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:48:20 +0000

Wow.
Didn’t MS ‘win’ its marketshare because it (decided later in a courts around the world) illegally developed a monopoly by bundling IE6 and making it part of its OS?

Of course it was buggy by today’s standards because…well there was no competition and MS likes to make the rules.

Now that many of us in the dev world care about standards, why should we think about this old browser?

By: David Pahl

David Pahl — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:39:35 +0000

Sure, I liked IE6 in its prime. What developer didn’t? Sure, it had its place in history. And its place would have been been held in high regard, but as the years pass, it still holds too large of a marketshare. It is not like browser software is expensive to replace.. It marketshare is only due to ignorance. It came from an era when the content of pc could be backed up multiple times on DVD.

The horse and buggy had there place, too. They just no longer belong on the fast-lane on the interstate!

By: Impressive Webs

Impressive Webs — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:26:45 +0000

Thank you to all for your comments. A few replies:

@Gordon: IE6 doesn’t clog your arteries or give you cancer. :0)

@Ben R: I almost changed the title from “greatest” but I really wanted to grab everyone’s attention, so I left the title slightly embellished.

@Harry Roberts: When I said “if it ain’t broke…” I meant from the perspective of the user, not the developer. That’s the problem with developers, they often fail to see things through the user’s eyes. I know IE6 is “broke”, but the average user doesn’t.

@Barney: No, I wasn’t trying to talk about compatibility, I was simply helping developers accept that IE6, all things considered, really is a very successful browser (Microsoft’s anti-competitive tactics aside).

Thanks to the others for the positive comments!

By: Matthew

Matthew — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 16:34:55 +0000

In its hayday yes. It did was it needed to do. But now the fact is it won’t die. And it needs to. :D

By: Barney

Barney — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 15:37:11 +0000

You make some interesting observations, but I don’t get the central gist of the post — are you informing developers that they need to make their work IE6-compatible?

By: Daniel

Daniel — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 13:58:50 +0000

Good article! from the perspective of a web developer. :)

By: Wardell

Wardell — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 13:42:32 +0000

There is no doubt that that IE6 was extremely successful. Probably more successful than any browser will ever be again, but the title Greatest Browser Ever Made is very subjective. In the wake of IE’s success Microsoft sat on its hands and allowed other Browser developers to introduce new and better products, and that is how Microsoft went from virtually 100% of the browser market down to almost 50%.

Of course the average person is happy with what they have until they are introduced to something better. People currently still using IE6 where probably happy sending postal mail until they where introduced to email, and I’m sure similar examples can be applied to other advances in technology.

Pre-IE6 browsers where perfectly capable of allowing web users to read, shop, browse, and email as well, but as underlying web standards and technology change and advance, so must the web browser, or be left to antiquate, and what is apparent to the web developer will inevitably be apparent to the web user, so consequently you have IE7 and IE8. I can agree that IE6 was the Greatest Browser of its time, but its time has passed.

By: Nacho

Nacho — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 13:40:52 +0000

People who are not constantly surfing use IE6.
They use it because they have old machines that have it, and they actually think it’s the only software to view web pages.
I use IE6 too, when I code websites, and you never get a message concerning that there are actually 2 newer versions of the software.

So, people use it because they are not well informed. If someone would show them a good browser, and compare it to IE6, they would always switch to the better one.

And that is a personal experience.
Nearly all the people I know now use Firefox, and deleted IE6. And they have no regrets :)